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A custom trigger starts automations when a person decides: someone presses its button on the order card, selects orders in the list and presses it there, uses its keyboard shortcut, or scans its barcode in floor mode. Your own systems can press it too, through the API. A custom trigger does nothing by itself. It runs the automations that start with it, so after you set one up, you add at least one automation for it.

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Set up a custom trigger

You need the Set up buttons, shortcuts and barcodes and See automations permissions. To add the automations it runs, you also need Create and change automations.
1

Open Custom triggers

Open Automations > Custom triggers. Your custom triggers are listed on the left, each with how people start it and how many automations it runs. Click New.
2

Decide how it looks

Under How it looks, type the Name people see, for example “Packed — print label”, and pick an Icon and a Colour. Preview shows the button on the Order card, in Floor mode, and in the Order list, with orders selected.
3

Decide how people start it

Under How people start it, choose where its button shows, give it a shortcut, and decide whether your own systems may press it. See How people start it.
4

Decide who sees it, and when

Under Who sees it, and when, limit it to stations, roles and order statuses, and set when a press on many orders asks first. See Who sees it, and when.
5

Create it

Click Create. The trigger gets its barcode.
6

Add what it runs

Under What it runs, click Add an automation for this trigger. The editor opens with this trigger chosen; add the conditions and steps and switch the automation on. See Create and edit automations.
To change a custom trigger, click it in the list, change what you need and click Save changes. Cancel puts back what was saved.

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How people start it

Below these, the page says whether other automations press this trigger, with Run a custom trigger or under If a step fails.

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Shortcut rules

A shortcut is Ctrl or Alt with a letter or a digit, with or without Shift, or a function key, F1 to F12. A single letter or digit cannot be a shortcut: a barcode scanner types single keys, and it would press the trigger in the middle of a scan. Omnilinker reads the key from where it sits on the keyboard, so Alt+P is Alt+P on a Polish keyboard too. Some keys cannot be used: ”… can’t be used: the browser keeps it, or AltGr types a letter with it.”
  • the browser’s own: Ctrl+W, Ctrl+T, Ctrl+N, Ctrl+Shift+N, Ctrl+Shift+T, Ctrl+Shift+W, Ctrl+Shift+Q, Ctrl+F4 and Alt+F4;
  • Ctrl+Alt with a letter or a digit: on Windows, AltGr is Ctrl+Alt, so these type letters such as “ą”.
Two custom triggers cannot share a shortcut: the page says “Taken: “…” already uses these keys.” A free shortcut shows “Free. Single letters can’t be used: a scanner types them.” To change it, click Change; to remove it, Remove.

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Barcode

The trigger gets its barcode when you create it. Scanning it in floor mode, with an order open, presses the trigger on that order. A barcode presses the trigger only where its button may show In floor mode, and only for the people, stations and statuses chosen below. To give a trigger a new barcode, click New code and confirm: “Give it a new code? Cards printed with the current one will stop working.” A new code is never one that another trigger has. Omnilinker does not print a sheet of trigger barcodes for you yet. The setup page shows each trigger’s barcode.

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Who sees it, and when

The section reads as a sentence: Show it at any station to people in any role when the order is in any status. Pick values to narrow it:
  • Stations: the button shows, and the trigger can be pressed, only on a computer printing at one of these stations. See Choose your station.
  • Roles: only people in one of these roles see it and can press it. The trigger keeps a role by its name: after you rename a role, choose it again here.
  • Statuses: the order statuses the trigger runs in.
Stations and roles are never overridden. A status is different: “Pressed on a record in another status, it doesn’t fail quietly: it says which status it runs in, and someone allowed to can run it anyway.” See An order in another status. The shortcut and the barcode follow the same rules as the button. On many records at once, ask first when there are more than a number of orders, 10 by default, from 1 to 500. “Each record gets its own result; one failure doesn’t stop the rest.”

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What it runs

What it runs lists the automations that start with this trigger, in the order they run, each with its condition (or always), its number of steps, and its state when it is not On. “Every press goes through all of them, in this order. Their conditions decide which ones act, so one button can cover every case.” For example, one Packed button can run one automation for parcel-locker orders and another for courier orders. A tag shows how last week’s presses went: “Last week, every press matched exactly one”, or how many presses matched none and how many matched more than one.

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Delete a custom trigger

Click Delete and confirm: “Delete “…”? Its buttons, shortcut and barcode stop working.” You cannot delete a custom trigger while automations start with it, or press it with Run a custom trigger or under If a step fails. The message names them; move or delete those automations, or remove the step, first.

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Press a custom trigger

You need the Use buttons, shortcuts and barcodes permission. You see only the triggers that are for you: placed where you are, at your station, and for your role.

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On the order card

The buttons are in the order card’s header, each with its shortcut. Click one, or press its shortcut anywhere on the page except while you type in a field. A message says ”“…” started on 1 record.” The Automations section of the card shows what ran; see The order card’s Automations section.

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On the order list

Select orders on Sales > Orders. The buttons appear in the bar above the list, and their shortcuts work while orders are selected. When you select more orders than the trigger’s threshold, Omnilinker shows what the press would do before anything happens: “Run “…” on N records?”
  • how many orders each automation will act on, and how many no automation applies to (“no automation applies: nothing happens”);
  • each order that won’t run, with why, for example because it is held;
  • “They run one at a time, in the order of this list.”
Click Run on N records, or Cancel. “Keep working: each record’s card shows what ran as it finishes.” One press runs on at most 500 orders. A press from the list leaves out orders whose automations are held, even when you select only one.

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An order in another status

A button for statuses other than the order’s is greyed out, and its tooltip says “Runs in other statuses: press to see which”. Pressing it says why it didn’t run, for example “It runs only in Packing; this one is New.” With the Run a button on an order whose status it doesn’t allow permission, you are asked ”… Run it anyway?” and can run it.

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A held order

On the order card and in floor mode, a custom trigger pressed on a held order still runs: you are looking at the order and chose to press it. Automations its steps start by themselves still wait for the hold to be released. See Holds.

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A rule pressing a custom trigger

An automation can press a custom trigger too:
  • as a step, with Run a custom trigger;
  • when it fails for good, under If a step fails, with and press.
The automations the trigger starts run as they would for a person’s press, in the same chain, so the loop guard counts them. An automation can only press a custom trigger on its own kind of record. A common use is a “Needs a person” trigger whose automation tells the team, holds the order and sets a status. Every automation that can fail presses it under If a step fails. The goal Hand it to a person sets this up.

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Press it through the API

Tick Your own systems on the trigger. Then call it with an API key that has the Use buttons, shortcuts and barcodes permission; see API keys.
{id} is the custom trigger’s id. The answer lists each order with accepted and, when it didn’t run, a reason. A press of an API key is shown on the order card as through the API. The station and role limits apply to the API too: a trigger limited to stations or roles can only be pressed by a key that meets them. A trigger without Your own systems answers ”“…” isn’t open to API keys.” An API key’s press leaves out orders whose automations are held, as a press from the list does: nobody looked at them. Each call is a new press: a call that timed out may have pressed already. Before you call again, check the order’s Automations section, or the answer’s pressedAt, rather than retrying blindly. A key that may press a trigger runs it on any order of your organization: the trigger’s automations act, whatever else the key may do. Tick Your own systems only on triggers an integration should run.

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Next steps

Floor mode

Packers scan an order, then press a tile or scan a trigger’s barcode.

Runs and activity

See what each press ran.